Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Date 10 - Face Your Fears!

Day: Saturday, 10/22/11
Type: Adventure/Double Date
Cost: $$$
Planned By: Adam


Adam decided to plan a trip to Cedar Point for date night. We weren't able to go during the summer like usual so the next best thing was a Halloweekend. We both love cedar point, but its always more fun when you have more people so we invited our friends Laura and Sean. So now it can be considered a double date! Adam and I arrived in Sandusky around 10:30 AM, ate at Dairy Queen, and made our way to cedar point. Sean and Laura got stuck in traffic on the way so we went in and rode some of the smaller rides. We road the Motion Ocean (the swinging ship), The Blue Streak, and Cedar Downs Racing Derby.  Adam won the race.
Laura and Sean showed up after we got done racing. We met them at the entrance and made our way to the back of the park. First, we rode the Gemini (racing coaster). We lost. Then we rode the Sky Hawk (the big swing thing). We then decided it was time to ride a big coaster. All of the big rides had two hour waits so we made a group decision to wait the two hours for Millenium Force. We played lots of fun games while waiting. The main games was I'm going to (insert place here) and I'm bring a (pick items A-Z). We had a good time talking since we don't get to see each other that much now that we live in different cities. By overall the two hour wait wasn't that bad. When the ride came to a complete stop I realized my hand finger got cut. Not sure how, but I'm thinking about a law suit.
 
Instead of getting in another two hour line, we went on Power Tower and Magnum XL 200. These two rides still had a long wait so we played some more games and observed people around us. There were so many people wearing these animal hats that had a scarf like thing attached with mitten type things at the ends. Anyway, the first one we saw was a Panda. We started out by making fun of them, but by the end of the night I was so cold I wished I had one. So while riding the Magnum something crazy happened. On the way up the second hill a quarter was flying at my face. At first it freaked me out, then I tried to catch it. I missed, but it was really cool!
 
After the Magnum we got dinner. We just ate in the park because it was easiest. Adam and I had chili dogs and cheese fries, and Sean and Laura had chicken fingers and fries. It was good. We ate pretty quickly and went to the Halloween activities. The first haunted house we went in was The Eerie Estate then the brand new Blood on the Bayou. I haven't been in a haunted house in years so I was a little scared. I jumped and screamed a couple times. There were so many people there that the characters weren't able to reset in between groups so it probably could have been better, but oh well.
We then made our way back towards the Maverick (my favorite ride). The wait was supposedly two hours, but I think it only took and hour and a half. We played 20 questions, and I won! We had a lot of fun playing games. It was a great way to get through the line. After the Maverick we went through the Corn Stalkers haunted maze. I thought this one was pretty scary. There were people dressed up in corn stalks and jumping out of the maze. I jumped a few times. We then walked through the Scream Works area. It was just the large pathway towards Millenium Force, but there were a bunch of characters just hanging out scaring people walking through the park. It was 11:20ish PM when we got done with the maze so we decided to ride the Top Thrill Dragster before the park closed at Midnight. We made it in to line around 11:30. I personally don't like the Dragster that much. You wait in line forever for a 17 second ride, plus it scares the crap out of me. I think it is a great ride, just not one of my favorites. Anyway, it was super creepy waiting in line. All the fake fog from the haunted houses was taking over the peninsula and we couldn't even see the top of the Dragster. I was beginning to wonder if the coaster trains were even making it up there. We got on the ride around midnight and don't worry we lived. After the Dragster we headed home.
 
 
Overall, it was a great trip to Cedar Point. We had fun with our friends and had a great time with the rides and the haunted attractions. It was a great first experience at a Cedar Point Halloweekend. I would definitely go again.

Ratings:
Cedar Point Rides: 10/10 - there's no amusement park like Cedar Point. We didn't get to ride as many rides as usual, but the rides we got to go one were great..
Haunted Houses: 7/10 - They were scary, but not too scary because the crowds were too big. It was fun hanging on to Adam when I was scared though. The Halloween decorations all over the park were really interesting and made it really feel like a haunted amusement park.
Food: 6/10 - it wasn't bad but it wasn't anything too exciting, and it was very expensive. We did get Dippin' Dots though, which are always amazing.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Date 9: Home Sweet Homecoming!

Day: Saturday, 10/15/11
Type: Casual
Cost: $$
Planned By: Dani & Adam

This passed weekend was Ohio University's homecoming. We had to go back considering it was our first year out of college. Instead of planning a date for this week we just decided to use homecoming as our date since we knew we'd spend all our time together. We got there on late Friday night so the homecoming festivities were already over for the day. There was still a lot to do on Saturday.

We woke up at 6 to have breakfast and mimosas with our friends. We had a good time talking while eating and getting ready for the day. We headed up town around 9AM to get ready for the parade. Of course all the bars were already open to celebrate.
We went out on the street at about five minutes until 10 to get a seat and watch the parade. It was pretty cold out and I didn't bring a jacket. We only stayed on Court St. to watch the Marching 110 then moved to a warmer location to watch the rest.

 
We walked down the street to our warmer spot. It's one of my sorority sister's apartments and she was very kind to let us hang out there for the remainder of the parade. The rest of the parade was supposed to be floats, but I was surprised and very angry to find out that Greek floats were no longer in the parade and that they all just made banners. The parade was a little less exciting than in the past without the floats. There was a really awesome balloon display and the alumni band was fun to watch!


After the parade we went back to Court St. to see some more of our friends.
 

We also went to my sorority's alumnae brunch. We got some free food and saw some more friends. It was nice seeing the changes they have made in the house. It looks good. We got Chipotle for lunch and then went to the game. We actually only went to the game for the second quarter and half time. We lost. :(
 
After the game we spent the rest of the night with our friends. It was great being back and we finally felt like alumni. For the first time is wasn't as sad to leave on Sunday. We are still very excited for our next visit to OU, but it was a great weekend! :)

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Date 8: Fall Fun

Day: Monday, 10/10/11
Type: Casual & Fun
Cost: $
Planned By: Adam

Because we will be busy for the rest of the weekends in October, Adam decided to do a full out fall date. This was a pretty long date, and had a lot different parts to it.

First we went and picked out pumpkins. Adam picked a perfectly round one. Ever since I was little I always picked an ugly pumpkin because I think they are lonely and will never get picked. So I picked one that was lopsided.  

We went home and made a big pot of Turkey Chili. We hadn't had turkey chili before, but we are trying to be a little healthier so we switched to turkey. We also had apple cider with our chili. We dressed up the apple cider by putting it in a martini glass and cutting up some apples. Both the cider and chili were delicious!

  
After dinner it was time to carve our pumpkins! We haven't really carved pumpkins in few years so I was pretty excited. We cut open the tops and started gutting them. We decided to keep the seeds for a later activity so we had to make sure to separate the guts from the seeds. After all the seeds were out we made sure the rest of the inside of the pumpkins were clean and started carving the faces. When we had finished we turned off the lights and waited to reveal our pumpkins to each other. I went first and Adam started laughing at my poor little pumpkin. I'm not a very good pumpkin carver, but I did make a pretty funny face. Adam then revealed his pumpkin, and I think it looks like a rabbit. You be the judge.
When the pumpkins were finished we washed and dried the pumpkin seeds. We sprinkled garlic salt on one baking sheet and cinnamon on the other. We put them in the oven and baked them for about a half hour. Every 5-10 minutes we took them out and shook them to avoid them getting burned.
 
To end our date we had pumpkin decorated cupcakes made by my sister Michelle. They were super cute and super tasty. You can see how she made and decorated them at her blog Just Icing on the Cake.
 
Ratings:
Turkey Chili: 8/10 - really good with a kick!
Apple Cider: 7/10 - nothing special, but good
Pumpkin Carving: 10/10 - lots of fun!
Pumpkin Seeds (Garlic Salt): 7/10 - dry but good for my first ever pumpkin seed tasting
Pumpkin Seeds (Cinnamon): 5/10 - dry, couldn't really taste the cinnamon
Cupcakes: 10/10 - I love Michelle chocolate cake and it was still moist a couple days later, the orange frosting was a new taste for me and was great, they fit perfectly with our fall date night!